Politicians are meant to serve the people, but let’s be real—sometimes they just end up serving whoever’s got the deepest pockets, even if those pockets are overseas. Believe it or not, foreign powers have been messing with our political system for years through entirely legal means: good old-fashioned lobbying. This week, Adam sits with Casey Michel, author of Foreign Agents: How American Lobbyists and Lawmakers Threaten Democracy Around the World , to dive into how our politicians are getting ...
Sep 04, 2024•1 hr 2 min
( In addition to your weekly Factually! episode, this week we're bringing you a monologue from Adam. This short, researched monologue originally aired on the Factually! YouTube page, but we are sharing audio versions of these monologues with our podcast audience as well. Please enjoy, and stay tuned for your regularly scheduled episode of Factually!) Why does it feel like America hates college students? We saddle them with crushing debt, label them as "snowflakes," and even deploy SWAT teams whe...
Aug 30, 2024•22 min
Here's a harsh truth: the internet is real life. The toxic mix of misogyny, racism, and anti-democratic sentiment that has been festering online for years has now blatantly spilled over into the rhetoric of Republican politics. But how did the online right-wing become so extreme and unhinged? To explore this question, Adam sits down with journalist Elle Reeve, author of Black Pill: How I Witnessed the Darkest Corners of the Internet Come to Life, Poison Society, and Capture American Politics . T...
Aug 28, 2024•1 hr 19 min
We humans often like to think we're superior to animals, and that our ability to speak makes us extra special. While it's true that language is unique to humans, we're definitely not the only ones communicating. In fact, many animals have complex ways of talking to each other that we're only just starting to understand. This week, Adam is joined by Dr. Arik Kershenbaum, author of Why Animals Talk: The New Science of Animal Communication, to explore how animals communicate and what that reveals a...
Aug 21, 2024•1 hr 6 min
( In addition to your weekly Factually! episode, this week we're bringing you a monologue from Adam. This short, researched monologue originally aired on the Factually! YouTube page, but we are sharing audio versions of these monologues with our podcast audience as well. Please enjoy, and stay tuned for your regularly scheduled episode of Factually!) Wouldn't it be amazing if there were a magic pill that could unlock untapped potential in your mind? For years, internet hucksters have been raking...
Aug 16, 2024•15 min
NASA's Perseverance rover recently discovered a rock on Mars that could be the key to finding evidence of life beyond Earth. Coupled with the recently discovery that hundreds of millions of other planets exist in the "habitable zone" of their stars, it’s becoming increasingly likely that we’re not alone in the universe. While finding extraterrestrial life would be one of the most groundbreaking scientific achievements ever, the ongoing search is already shedding light on our own origins and plac...
Aug 14, 2024•1 hr 17 min
Our species didn't just stumble upon fire during our evolution; we evolved because of our unique relationship with it. From cooking food to burning fossil fuels to climate change, the entire history of humanity is intertwined with fire. This week's guest is Stephen Pyne, a world-renowned fire historian and author of The Pyrocene: How We Created an Age of Fire, and What Happens Next . Adam and Stephen discuss the changes in our relationship with fire and how repairing that relationship will be in...
Aug 07, 2024•49 min
The 2024 election cycle has been positively ludicrous. Between Biden's disastrous debate performance, the attempted assassination of Trump, every single thing about JD Vance, and Biden dropping out of the race, it seems like history is happening too fast to even keep track of. This week, Adam sits down with Rick Perlstein, political historian and author of Reaganland: America's Right Turn 1976-1980 , to unpack one of the most charged moments in American political history. Find Rick's book at fac...
Jul 31, 2024•1 hr 2 min
Bankruptcy can mean totally different things depending on your wealth. For the rich, it’s a shield; for the poor, it’s a punishment. Despite this debilitating divide, in a country where we need to take on debt for homes, transportation, and medical care, we still rely on the bankruptcy system to keep the economy from collapsing. This week, Adam sits with Melissa Jacoby, a law professor at UNC Chapel Hill and author of Unjust Debts: How Our Bankruptcy System Makes America More Unequal . Together ...
Jul 24, 2024•1 hr 12 min
Whether you're at the grocery store or a restaurant, food is becoming obscenely expensive. It's easy to point to inflation as the sole culprit, but that's only a narrow view of a much bigger picture. For years, the food industry has been falling to monopolists who have been edging out independent farmers. Food quality has gone down, prices have gone up, and it has been a shocking disaster for the environment. This week, Adam speaks with Austin Frerick, an expert on agriculture and antitrust poli...
Jul 17, 2024•1 hr 7 min
The latest round of Supreme Court decisions will radically reshape America as we know it. From overturning the Chevron decision and stripping federal agencies of their ability to do their jobs, to giving presidents broad immunity for actions that would otherwise be considered criminal, it can be hard to fully grasp the impact of these rulings, both immediately and in the future. This week, Adam speaks with Leah Litman and Kate Shaw, law professors and hosts of the podcast "Strict Scrutiny," to m...
Jul 10, 2024•46 min
Big tech is betting tens of billions of dollars on AI being the next big thing, but what if it isn't? ChatGPT burns obscene amounts of cash daily with little return, Google's AI dispenses useless and sometimes dangerous advice, and a recent study showed that tech companies will soon run out of new training data to improve their AI models. If AI is really so costly, unreliable, and limited, what happens to the industry that has bet so big on it? This week, Adam talks with journalist and influenti...
Jul 03, 2024•1 hr 16 min
Since 2016, Natalie Wynn has been making wildly popular video essays on YouTube under the name ContraPoints. Her videos, which cover everything from politics, to gender, to society's obsession with the apocalypse, gracefully distill academia-level research into insightful and highly digestible packages. Despite winning a Peabody award and holding a master’s degree in philosophy, Natalie proudly calls herself a YouTuber. Is this a new form of media? One that eschews the conventional structure of ...
Jun 26, 2024•1 hr 23 min
Games often get a bad rap as mere distractions, the frivolous filler between so-called "important things." But research into the connection between people and games reveals that they’re not just beneficial—they're essential. This week, Adam is joined by bioscientist and neurophysicist Kelly Clancy, author of Playing with Reality: How Games Have Shaped Our World , to explore the pivotal role games play in our development, history, and even in the natural world beyond humans. Find Kelly's book at ...
Jun 19, 2024•1 hr 5 min
Our understanding of intelligence is always growing, but recent research has thrown a fascinating curveball: we're discovering that plants are intelligent too. Though they might not look like creatures we typically describe as intelligent, plants can store information, solve problems, and develop complex social networks. This week, Adam sits with Zoë Shlanger, author of The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth , to explore this gala...
Jun 12, 2024•1 hr 6 min
Abortion is not just a political story; it's a personal one. In the two years since Roe was struck down by the Supreme Court in the Dobbs decision, a host of challenges has arisen for women, trans, and non-binary people seeking basic control over their own bodies. This week, Adam speaks with Shefali Luthra, author of Undue Burden: Life and Death Decisions in Post-Roe America, about the harrowing realities of the current state of abortion healthcare in America. Find Shefali's book at factuallypod...
Jun 05, 2024•1 hr 4 min
We’ve been discussing the slow death of journalism for a long time, but what if it didn’t just “die”? This week, Adam speaks with Margot Susca, a professor at American University and author of Hedged: How Private Investment Funds Helped Destroy American Newspapers and Undermine Democracy , about how private equity firms have dismantled journalism and betrayed America. Find Margot's book at at factuallypod.com/books SUPPORT THE SHOW ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/adamconover SEE ADAM ON TOUR...
May 29, 2024•59 min
( In addition to your weekly Factually! episode, this week we're bringing you a monologue from Adam. This short, researched monologue originally aired on the Factually! YouTube page, but we to start sharing audio versions of these monologues with our podcast audience as well. Please enjoy, and stay tuned for your regularly scheduled episode of Factually!) You may have noticed that Google isn't what it used to be. Search results are buried under ads and sponsored links, and when you do find a res...
May 27, 2024•20 min
This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/FACTUALLY and get on your way to being your best self. We're happy to have conversations about eliminating poverty, but why are we so reluctant to talk about eradicating extreme wealth? Poverty is commonly regarded as an indication of a struggling society, and a tiny number of people controlling a disproportionately large amount of wealth should be seen similarly. Political philosopher Ingrid Robeyns, autho...
May 22, 2024•1 hr 7 min
The labor movement is in a state of flux. Support for unions is the highest it's been in decades, including the explict support of the Biden administration, yet actual union membership has plummeted to a historical low. With only 10% of the workforce unionized, is the labor movement missing its best chance to organize more workers? This week Adam sits with Hamilton Nolan, labor journalist and author of The Hammer: Power, Inequality, and the Struggle for the Soul of Labor , to reconcile the popul...
May 15, 2024•1 hr 13 min
Homelessness has reached a record high, with over 650,000 people experiencing it in the USA today. Despite this staggering number, many remain unaware of the true underlying causes of this crisis. Myths surrounding issues like drug use and immigration often serve as convenient scapegoats, deflecting attention from meaningful efforts to address the problem. This not only represents a moral failure towards those experiencing homelessness but also towards the communities affected by it. This week, ...
May 08, 2024•1 hr 14 min
The climate crisis is unfolding very day, with many inevitable consequences looming in the near future. While we may hope for clean energy or fossil fuel alternatives to save the day, climate change is more than just a technological issue—it's fundamentally a social problem. When tend to view climate change only from an ecological or technological perspective, but we require a sociological view to understand how we can collectively solve it. This week, Adam discusses these complexities with Dr. ...
May 01, 2024•1 hr 26 min
This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/FACTUALLY and get on your way to being your best self. The term "socialism" has gained prominence in today's political discourse, yet it hasn't fully entered the political mainstream apart from moments like the Occupy Wall Street movement or Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign. Unlike the fervent following of MAGA, there's no socialist movement of comparable size and far-right politicians outnumber their ...
Apr 24, 2024•1 hr 17 min
This episode is sponsored by Surfshark. When we talk about racism in America, we tend to focus on the harm inflicted upon people of color, while rarely focusing on the ways that white people indirectly benefit from a racist culture. Author Tracie McMillan explores this concept of The White Bonus in her latest book, exploring the tangible financial benefits associated with being white in America. In this episode, Adam speaks with Tracie about white Americans reckoning with their privilege, the in...
Apr 17, 2024•1 hr 5 min
The American prison system is in shambles. Rehabilitation efforts fall short, recidivism rates soar, and the numbers show that our incarceration system fails to actually make us any safer. While the notion of abolishing prisons might sound radical, entertaining its principles could help cast light on the shortcomings of our current system and steer us toward a more just society. This week, Adam sits down with Tommie Shelby, a philosopher and professor of African-American studies at Harvard, who ...
Apr 10, 2024•1 hr 3 min
There's been a surge in discourse around medications such as Ozempic, prompting understandable skepticism—Is this another weight loss fad, or the beginning of something new? While it is primarily used to treat diabetes and promote weight loss, there's mounting evidence that shows drugs like Ozempic can reduce the risk of heart attacks and strokes, and potentially be instrumental in treating addiction. In this episode, Adam speaks with Dr. Dhruv Khullar, a physician and assistant professor of hea...
Apr 03, 2024•54 min
The climate crisis is undeniably real, but it won't be the end of the world. Tomorrow, the planet will still be here, whether it's better or worse, and we'll all have to live in it. While it's understandable to feel hopeless, surrendering isn't an environmentally responsible choice. In this episode, Adam talks with Dr. Hannah Ritchie, author of "Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet," about striving for a future that not only averts disaster b...
Mar 27, 2024•1 hr 9 min
This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Widespread denial looms over the 2024 presidential election. Will Biden be replaced due to his age? Could a conviction halt Trump's ambitions? While enthusiasm is scarce for this exhausting rematch, it's going to happen whether we like it or not. Adam and Semafor political reporter David Weigel set aside concerns about old age and criminal trials to dissect the state of both campaigns, and what it will actually mean come November. SUPPORT THE SHOW ON...
Mar 22, 2024•1 hr 18 min
The profession of journalism is facing a crisis. Recent years have brought devastating layoffs to nearly every major news outlet, with local newspapers shuttering daily. As these institutions crumble, we're faced with a question: what does a world without journalism even look like? This week, Adam is joined by journalist Matt Pearce, who recently experienced large-scale layoffs at the LA Times. Together, they discuss the industry's apparent demise, the irreplaceable role of boots-on-the-ground r...
Mar 13, 2024•1 hr 17 min
The internet once felt novel and exciting, with new mysteries waiting to be discovered around every corner. These days there's a different mystery: who is actually deciding everything that you end up seeing? Journalist Kyle Chayka, author of Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture , has studied how platform algorithms have been invisibly guiding culture, as well as how they're been failing us. In this episode, Adam and Kyle discuss what algorithms get wrong about what people want, how that...
Mar 06, 2024•1 hr 11 min
